


Alternatives for Interim Housing

by Frolic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Families of Choice, Gen, Holidays, POV Bobby Singer, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 04:54:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frolic/pseuds/Frolic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During Winter Break, all undergraduate residences close for security reasons. Stay with a friend, or rent a hotel room. You will not be able to get back into your dorm for three weeks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alternatives for Interim Housing

Most hunters take a break around Christmas. Either they go home, to whatever home they have left, and pretend for a few days to be regular assholes… or they slouch off to their favorite dive bar, where they continue to be assholes, as regular. Bobby Singer, he doesn’t do either, but only because he has plenty of whiskey at home, where no one will try to cut him off. He drinks the whiskey straight out of the bottle, but it isn’t as if there’s anyone around to impress. Just old cars, looming in the lot outside, and books stacked to high heaven on Bobby’s desk and his chairs and everywhere. Bobby rarely has company, these days, and rarely wants it. 

Rufus used to stop by for Christmas Eve, and after that the Winchesters — never John, just the boys. Bobby’s boys. And before Rufus there had been Karen, who had made delicate paper chains and popcorn garlands and homemade eggnog and had never once made Bobby go with her to celebrate with the in-laws.

This winter, even his latest lot dog is dead. Bobby burned its body like most every other corpse he’s encountered since his wife died, and this time he didn’t even bother putting up a grave marker. It had been a good dog, hard working and loyal, but Bobby hadn’t even named it. Why bother? He peels the labels off his whiskey, too. Best to just let every dog slide together, let every bottle be as good as the next. If every day is rotgut and nameless dead dogs, then it doesn’t matter that it’s December 20th.

It’s December 20th, 2001 - and Bobby is sitting at his desk with half a bottle of whiskey when his phone rings. Not his FBI phone, or the CDC phone, or any of the agencies. Not even the phone he hasn’t labeled but which he privately thinks of as the Oh Shit phone, as in “Oh shit, what is this monster and how do I kill the damn thing?” December 20th, four in the afternoon, and the phone that’s ringing isn’t any of the phones by Bobby’s desk. It’s the phone in the kitchen, which rings with a shriller tone than all the rest and matches the rising panic in Bobby perfectly.

Bobby jumps to his feet. Who has the number to that phone?

Rufus, but they haven’t talked in almost ten years, since Omaha (Bobby swears he’ll patch that up some day, once he stops being mad as hell and lily-livered about the whole thing) or maybe the Harvelles but Ellen hasn’t been up to social calls since Bill died.

 Bobby snaps the phone from the receiver and barks, “What d’you want?” into the phone - someone must be dead.

The first thing Bobby hears is a hitched breath, like the person on the other end of the phone has been crying or taken by surprise. Must be Jo, Bobby thinks (who else would cry when calling him?) but then someone who is definitely not a teenaged girl says, “Sorry if this is a bad time, Bob—Mr. Singer. Sorry.”

It’s not anyone Bobby recognizes, and it’s not a steady voice. It cracks on  _Singer_  like it hurts to use Bobby’s last name. 

"It ain’t a bad time. How’d you get this number?" asks Bobby. Maybe it’s that kid Ellen’s been letting stay at the Roadhouse. Ace or Ash or whatever. He didn’t seem much like a weeper, though, not for anything he would let Bobby hang up on him for.

"You gave it to me," says the kid on the other end of the phone. Not Ash, then. "Well, you gave it to Dean, but he—"

“ _Sammy_?”

"Yeah," says Sam Winchester. Another hitched breath, then another. His voice is now tight and cracking on every syllable. "I know you told us to lose your number, I know I shouldn’t—"

"Shut yer mouth," Bobby demands. He feels suddenly as if all the air has been knocked out of him, has trouble even getting the words out.

"Sorry." 

"No, no, don’t be, I’m just crotchety." As always, these days. "It’s good to hear from you, Sam, what kind of trouble’s your daddy in?"

Immediately, Sam says, “I don’t know.” Right, because if he and Dean could figure it out, why would Sam call Bobby?

"We’ll figure it out," Bobby promises. "Tell me what you know. Should I start drivin’, or is Dean there?" He wants to be comforting, but as always the closest he can come is efficient.

"I don’t know where Dean is either, Bobby, I’m not calling about hunting, I’m calling because I…" Sam’s breath outright chokes, like all his words have crashed together and jammed his mouth up. Bobby can hear him snuffling into the phone, trying not to continue crying and obviously failing.

“Don’t get all tied up in knots about it. You’re in enough trouble to bother callin’ me, so it must be bad. What’dja do, kill someone?”

“No!”

Bobby can imagine exactly the face Sam would make, though he’s imagining it ten years too young: scandalized, offended, shocked that Bobby would even think Sam would go that far. Makes Sam stop sniffling, too, which is a miracle and a blessing if Bobby’s ever witnessed one.

“Well, if it ain’t manslaughter and it ain’t your daddy or things goin’ bump in the dark, it ain’t as bad as it could be. Just spit it out, Sammy, whatcha need?”

The last time Sam came to Bobby for something it was even more haltingly. No eye contact, wrapped up in one of Dean’s flannels, waiting for something to go wrong – looking ready to spring away from Bobby and probably shimmy out a window to get lost in the salvage lot if Bobby seemed to displeased. Back then, Sam had pulled his shoulders up to his ears and told Bobby’s feet that _Dad never gets Dean anything for Christmas_ and _Santa can’t find us in motel rooms, y’know?_ but _Dean’s been good this year, Bobby, you know he has, right?_

This time, fixing things might take more than a cup of Swiss Miss and a previously useless trinket. Sam has gotten himself into some kind of trouble he can’t get himself out of, and Bobby was the only person he could think to call besides John or Dean.

Sam shuffles on the other end of the phone. Maybe he’s switching the hand he’s holding it with, maybe he’s just stalling for time. Eventually he says, “Stanford is kicking everyone out of the dorms at noon tomorrow, and I don’t... have anywhere to go.” Sam swallows. “I could scam the money for a motel room, but it’s a long break, and if I was caught – my scholarship—”

“What do you need from me, Sammy?” Bobby asks, before Sam can really work himself up into a frenzy. Stanford is damn impressive, but now isn’t the time to harp on Sam’s achievements. Not when the kid might just need Ellen’s number, or someone to fake a call to the school so that Sam can stay in his dorm room, or someone to knock some sense into John fucking Winchester. Sam no doubt doesn’t give two shits what a drunk like Bobby Singer thinks of his Ivy League education.

“I could pay you the money back, eventually, it’s only sixty, maybe seventy dollars a night,” Sam says, all in a rush, and devolves quickly into begging. “Three weeks, and then they’ll let me move back on campus and I could do research for you? Until my job starts when classes begin? Or – or both, really, I know you won’t want to do me any big favors just so that I can stay in school, Bobby, but I get to work all summer so I can pay you back and it definitely won’t happen again, I promise, if just this once you’d—”

“You’re a goddamn fool, Sam Winchester,” Bobby says. “’Course I’ll give you money to keep you off the streets, you don’t gotta grovel and beg for it.”

Sam breathes out in relief, sniffs and laughs a little because – Bobby hopes – he now feels foolish for worrying at all. “Thanks, Bobby,” Sam says, warmer even than Ellen talks to Bobby these days.

“The thing is, though, you hate motels,” Bobby continues. “Since you could talk, you’ve been asking to spend Christmas in Sioux Falls, and I don’t got that spare room anymore, but...”

“I couldn’t ask that of you. I’ve already called you, when you didn’t ever want to hear from a Winchester again.”

“I bet you got that impression from your daddy, but it’s just him I never want to see or hear from,” Bobby says, unsurprised to find that John had told the boys not to call him.

Sam breathes in and out a couple times. “You never called us,” he says. “Dean and I waited – kept our numbers for a few years. Just in case.”

“I couldn’t ask you to choose between me and your dad,” Bobby grumbles. “Ain’t like you would have chosen me.”

“I would have wanted the choice,” Sam whispers, but Bobby doesn’t believe him.

“You’d have chosen Dean.” And Dean would have chosen their father. No matter how often Bobby looked after the Winchesters, it never could have been enough. John had a bad habit of demanding total loyalty from everyone.

Sam is quiet. Time to change the subject; no point dwelling on crap they can’t change. It just makes everyone feel worse.

Bobby twirls the cord of the phone, feels like a teenager, and stops. Then he says, “I’m piss-poor when it comes to holiday spirit, but you should come anyway. I heat up a mean can of soup.”

“Okay. Okay, if – if you’re sure.”

“Of course I’m sure, Sam. Shit, you want a formal invitation? You, me, Campbell’s chicken noodle, and a six pack. You need me to buy you a plane ticket?”

“No, I can – I’ve got that.” Sam clears his throat. Tone just shy of dazed, he adds, “Thank you, Bobby.”

“The hell else is family for?” Bobby grumbles into the receiver. “It ain’t no big fuckin’ deal. Call me back when you know what time you’ll be coming in. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

“I will,” Sam promises. “We’ll talk soon. Bye, Bobby.”

“Yeah, yeah. Bye.”

Bobby hangs up immediately, not one for dallying on the phone. He’s gotta clear the books off the couch, do a load of sheets, and recycle all the empty bottles laying around the house. And, Bobby decides, he should buy a fresh six pack, something besides the cheap, boring shit Bobby drinks when he’s not drinking something harder.

Also, soup. From the grocery store. Where they’re selling miniature Christmas trees. Bobby could buy one. Put it next to the couch. Definitely Bobby wouldn’t go so far as to _decorate_ it, not even lights, but Sam would probably enjoy making popcorn garlands or something. Or maybe not – maybe at, what, 20 years old Sam’s not interested in all that Christmas crap anymore. But Bobby will try anyway, and when Sam leaves he can burn the tree and bury it out in the salvage yard with everything else. No one will expect him to name the goddamn tree, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for anyone who knows anything about Stanford, I didn't bother looking up the actual closing dates for Winter Break in 2001. Let me know if I messed up in any major way, especially regarding the show's chronology. I'll admit I didn't have much time or patience for research on that front.


End file.
